I have so many thoughts rolling around my head and I just need to get them out. They could make up so many different blog posts…but truthfully I’m too lazy.

I want to get my thoughts out onto paper (well, typed out) and “clear up space” in my head.

I won’t be going back through and editing this before clicking Publish Post. Which means spelling may be off, and in that case I’ll go back and fix spelling some day. But my thoughts shall remain untouched.

Unscripted.

Because this is honesty. This is where I’m at. Hopefully someone, somebody, can relate.

I’ve been on a ‘diet’ for about a week and a half now. Not a diet diet…not one where you don’t eat bread or where you focus on fruit and veggies.

Just trying to be healthy. Not eat as much (I snack a lottt) and not eat much junk food…like desserts.

Plus I’ve been running. I think I’ve shared that here, but I’m not sure. I’ll post about running in the next few weeks. But for now, know that I’ve been doing the Couch25k program for a few weeks now. Today I began Week Four.

It’s hard. I’m not a runner and doubt I ever will be. 3 minutes at 4.5 speed is hard for me. And here I am training for a 5k. Ha! A 5k sounds so easy to me. And then I train for it and it suddenly sounds so crazy hard and tiring.

But things got worse this past weekend. Out of basically no where I felt myself being pulled back into who I once was.

I used to be quite consumed with how I look. I wanted to lose weight. I wanted my teeth to change. I didn’t like me hair. Or my skin. I had a whole list of things.

I’m ashamed to say how many things made that list. But know that it was a TON.

I pulled out of that, though. We pulled out of that. I found my beauty in Him. No matter my weight or the thickness of my hair. No matter how many pimples I woke up to in the morning.

My beauty began to be found in HIM.

I could breathe. It made things so much easier, you can’t even imagine.

That was years ago. YEARS.

And then this weekend I suddenly find myself struggling against that addiction. The addiction to get smaller. To exercise a lot (which isn’t bad in itself) and to eat way less, to be much healthier.

Being healthy isn’t bad, either. It’s GOOD.

But my reasoning wasn’t. Therein lies the problem.

I felt myself turning back into the person I had struggled to get rid of. I found myself wanting to not eat, to run further and harder. To get smaller. To be more beautiful.

I stood in front of the pantry with tears welling up in my eyes.

I rarely get hungry anymore. I don’t know why, but I just don’t get hungry. So to put food in my mouth when my stomach feels full…yet I haven’t eaten all day…it feels wrong.

Wrong to do that to myself.

Yet I know I need to eat.

So I stood there with tears in my eyes. In the same exact position I was in a few years ago. Forcing myself to eat something merely for the sake of breaking a cycle that was growing.

A cycle of ‘Hey don’t eat that. It’s bad for you and will make you bigger.’ A cycle of barely eating.

I wasn’t going to let that cycle start again. Not on me. Not this time. No thank you.

So I stood at the pantry and made myself eat something. Just so that I was eating.

I went to church last night for a worship service. We rarely have worship services on Sunday nights, but when we do I try to make sure I’m there. They’re always so great. This one was no exception.

They sang a song called I Am. In it it’s as if Jesus is telling you all the things He is.

Peace.

Love.

Comfort.

Shelter.

Understanding.

Joy in the hard times.

A sanctuary.

I thought of these and knew that, as always, He’s what I really need.

We sang another song that mentioned the cross. And all I could really think about were the scars He took for me.

One thought kept flying around my head…waiting for me to stop singing, bow my head, and just think about what I was hearing.

“I’m putting more scars on Him. Hasn’t He taken enough? I’m inflicting more pain.”

“I’m adding even more scars to His back.”

By not loving myself, by not loving my body, by not finding my beauty in Him but in the physical and fading things, I’m hurting Him.

He’s taken more than enough for me (and for you). I never deserved anything from Him. Anything at all. No one did.

And here I am bringing Him pain.

I stood there in tears.

Different tears than the ones that formed in my eyes when I stood in front of the pantry.

Because my Lover and Redeemer is precious. He should be my everything, and often times I don’t make Him that important in my day to day life. I love Him dearly, but I live on a few minutes of time reading the Word a day. That may work for some people, but it’s clearly not working for me because look at me.

Back where I was years ago. The old me. The one I thought I would never ever in a million years return to.

I don’t want to be that person.

I won’t be that person.

I left the worship service last night knowing that I had to behave differently. I had to think differently. Knowing that it would be hard, but that it could be overcome.

After all, the song reminded me of two very important truths, two statements that I had been forgetting.

“I Am the future, so leave your past behind.”

and

“I Am your Freedom this very hour.”

I could stand there and say no to being free. I could go home and continue the fight against seeing beauty in myself. Because it is a fight. I don’t think I’m ugly. I often think I look good. It sounds conceited, but I just don’t think of myself as ugly anymore. That part of me HAS changed from a few years ago.

But it’s a fight. Because I look for the world’s view of beauty when I look in the mirror. And I don’t always see it. I see the bruises and the pimples. I see the extra 10 pounds. I see my hips. I see plain.

I know better than this.

I know what He sees.

He’s offering me, you, freedom from what I (we) see.

I took it. I smiled as I cried and told myself and Jesus that I will NOT cause any more scars or pain because of my eating choices.

I will take the freedom He offers freely.

I will leave the past behind.

“Just when you think you’re over something and it has become part of your past, it comes back to bite you in the butt. Except now you know how to fight. And this time? This time you win.” -me